Some Notes on the Adynaton in Medieval Literature

1. Schroeder, Franz-Rolf, "ADYNATA", in Edda, Skalden, Saga. Festschrift Genzmer (Heidelberg: Winter, l952), 108-137. [A particularly rich collection, not only concerned with ONorse literature. An amusing quote: (p. 123) Diese Sage, wonach die Fluesse urspruenglich zwei Parallellaeufe, einen aufwaerts, einen abwaerts, haetten, ist ausser bei den nordamerikanischen Indianerstaemmen auch bei denen Suedamerikas (Bolivien) bezeugt und kehrt in gleicher Weise auch bei Finnen und Ungarn wieder, was auf uralte Zusammenhaenge zwischen der Alten und der Neuen Welt hinweist.] {This story, according to which rivers originally had two parallel courses, one upwards, one downwards, is at- tested not only among American Indian tribes but also among those of South America (Bolivia), and it occurs again in the same manner also among the Finns and the Hungarians, which points to age old connections between the Old and the New World}. Must be continental drift.
2. Rowe, Galen Otto. The Adynaton and the Statement of Perpetuity in Greek and Latin Poetry. (Diss. Vanderbilt, l963) [Dissertation "angeregt" by JWM. Excellent discussion and bibliography.]
3. Cerchi, Paolo, "Gli 'adynata' dei trovatori," Modern Philology, 68 (1971), 223-241. [Valuable collection, but little new.]
4. Van der Leeuw, G., "Adunata," Jaarbericht van het Vooraziatisch-Egyptisch Gezelschap (Leiden: E. J. Brill, l943), 631-641. [Written without knowledge of secondary literature, but with some interesting examples, mostly adynata of time (e.g. once in a blue moon).]
5. Fucilla, Joseph G., "Petrarchism and the Modern Vogue of the Figure 'Adynaton'," ZRPh 56 (1936), 671-81. [Also in his collected works (Studies and Notes. Naples: Mezzogiorno, 1953, 31-46). Good collection, but has the weird notion that Petrarch is responsible for most modern adynata.]
6. Coon, Raymond H. The Reversal of Nature as a Rhetorical Figure. Indiana University Studies, vol. 15 (Study No. 80) (Bloomington, l928). 20 pp. [Often cited, but not very good; some useful bibliography.]
7. Schultz-Gora, Oskar, "Das Adynaton in der altfr. und prov. Dichtung nebst Dazugehoerigem," Archiv fuer das Studium der neueren Sprachen, 161 (1932), 196-209. [Good collection of material, no understanding.]
8. Crusius, Otto, "Maerchenreminiscenzen im antiken Sprichwort," Verhandlungen der 40. Versammlung dt. Philologen u. Schulmaenner in Goerlitz (Leipzig, 1890), 31-47. [Full of all kinds of wild stuff.]
9. L'image du monde renverse et ses representations litteraires et para- litteraires de la fin du xvie siecle au milieu du xviie. Etudes reunies et presentees par Jean Lafond et Augustin Redondo (Paris: Vrin, 1979). [A collection of articles on the subject.]
10. Odenius, Oloph, "Mundus inversus," Arv 10 (1954), 142-170. [Although ostensibly "some introductory bibliographical remarks concerning three Middle Swedish picture-variants," this is really the best collection, with excellent, if hard to decipher, bibliography.]
11. Friedlaender, Paulus. Argolica. Quaestiones ad Graecorum historiam fa- bularem pertinentes. Cap. I-III. Diss. Berlin, l905. Appendix I. De solis itinere converso, 86-91. [Mentions also some early German examples, mostly from Uhland.]
12. Canter, H. V., "The Figure Adynaton in Greek and Latin Poetry," AJPh 51 (1930), 32-41. [Good for source material.]
13. Zingerle, Ignaz V., "Der Rhein und andere Fluesse in sprichwoertlichen Redensarten," Germania 7 (1862), 187-192. [Collection of adynata, mostly of the type "burning the Rhein".]
14. Pirrone, Nicola, "Adynaton," Athenaeum. Studi periodici di letteratura e storia dell'antichita, 2 (1914), 38-45. [Mostly same old stuff. Some new secondary literature.]
15. Cocchiara, G. Il mondo alla rovescia (Turin, 1963). [Not seen, but supposed (by Cherchi) to be good.]
16. Linn, Irving, "If All the Sky were Parchment," PMLA 53 (1938), 951-970. [Based almost totally on the following.]
17. Koehler, Reinhold, "Und wenn der Himmel waer Papier," Kleinere Schriften, III (Weimar: Emil Felber, 1900), 293-318. [Based on articles from 1863 and 1889, with additions from his notes by J. Bolte, the editor of the Kleinere Schriften. An excellent article on one particular adynaton; many later articles are based on his.]
18. Dutoit, Ernest, Le theme de l'adynaton dans la poesie antique (Paris: PUF, 1936).
19. James W. Marchand, "The Adynata in Alfonso X's Cantiga 110," Bulletin of the Cantigueiros de Santa Maria 1 (1988), 83-90.